A Loss and a Gain
by IWishICouldThinkOfABetterName
Summary: Sometimes bad things just happen. It's nobody's fault. It's not because the universe hates you. Sometimes bad things just happen.
1. Chapter 1

It was a bright, cloudy day in New Mobotropolis. The air was warm, but there was a cool breeze blowing. Windows were left open to let in the summer air. There had just been a storm the day before, and there probably would be another one tomorrow, but today, the sun shone bright.

Dr. Nathaniel Ellidy was busily soldering away at a small circuit, unknowing of the pleasant weather outside of his sterile, climate controlled basement laboratory. His work was almost complete; he just had to solder one last connection…

"Beep! Beep! Beep!" an alarm suddenly rang out, making him jump slightly, but he managed to keep his hands steady. "Oh. Time to wake up, apparently." He said to himself sarcastically. Standing up from his chair, the lynx stretched and let out a long yawn. "I really can't keep pulling these all-nighters." He informed himself. "But I'm so close!" He quickly and nimbly removed all of the heat sinks from the circuit, and carefully moved it to a sterilization chamber that he had built from a microwave (not that he couldn't get a proper one, he had just made this one on a bet). After entering the mass of the circuit and hitting start, the sterilizer set to work destroying any dust or fur that may have gotten onto the chip. As he waited, the doctor began idly fiddling with the casing for his latest invention. He called it N.I.C.O.L.E. short for Neural Integrated COmputer and Living Entity. Not the most elegant of acronyms, but he wanted to name it after his daughter, Nikki. "Almost finished." he said to himself.

"Ding!" The timer on the sterilizer went off, and Dr. Ellidy was startled again. "A lack of sleep seems to make me jumpy." he commented. "And more likely to talk to myself." he added humorously. Carefully, he inserted the chip into the handheld, and booted it up.

"Boot complete." The handheld announced in a dry, female voice. "Systems diagnostics initiated…complete. All systems functional. No intelligence matrix detected. Semantics processor cannot be activated."

Dr. Ellidy stared at the handheld in mild disbelief for a few seconds, before suddenly jumping into the air. "Yes! It works! It works!" While the doctor had never been one to doubt his own abilities, even he was skeptical of such a lofty goal at first. "Oh, thank you, god." he said, a large grin covering his face. His celebration, however, was cut short by a sound from upstairs.

"Uh, dad?" came the worried voice of his daughter, Nicole Ramona Ellidy, or Nikki, as she preferred. "Coming, Nikki!" Dr. Ellidy replied, carefully setting down the handheld and dashing upstairs. Rounding a corner, he found Nikki waiting by the hall bathroom. "What's wrong?" he asked her.

"Uh, that..." she said, pointing to the bathroom sink. Dr. Ellidy looked inside, and found a mixture of toothpaste, saliva, and to his horror, blood.

"Oh… he said, lost for words." Regaining his sense, he started examining her gums, looking for any cuts. "Does it hurt?" he asked her. "No," she replied. "It just scared me to see that much blood."

"Well, it scared me too," Dr. Ellidy said. "But if it doesn't hurt, and if the bleeding's stopped, I think it's safe to say that you're not in any immediate danger." Nikki breathed a sigh of relief. "I'll make an appointment with your dentist for tomorrow." N.I.C.O.L.E. could wait. Nikki was his top priority.


	2. Chapter 2

"No! Damn it, no! I need more time!" Dr. Ellidy was frantically typing at his computer, designing in minutes what would have taken others months. Behind him, Nikki lay in a hospital bed, with a series of sensors and electrodes taped to her head. She let out a small, pitiful cough.

"Yes!" the doctor yelled, hitting print on his current project. Jumping up, he ran frantically to his 3D printer, careful to jump over the cables connected from his computer to the apparatus around his daughter's head.

"Come on, print!" he yelled at the extruder needle, knowing that his urging was useless. He slammed his finger into the open button before the timer could even go off. He dashed to his desk, where N.I.C.O.L.E. lay, circuitry exposed. While rushing, the doctor was never one to throw caution to the wind, and took a few precious seconds to ensure that the drive was seated properly. Satisfied, he clicked the covers into place and inserted the handheld into his computer.

"Transfer all files from input B to external drive N." he said aloud as he typed. The computer beeped, and a progress bar appeared. In a few seconds, it had reached two percent. He quickly turned to look at his daughter, and her pulse, which was getting slower.

"Hang in there, Nikki. Just a little longer."

He had sat staring at the progress bar for minutes on end, checked and double checked all of the cable connections five times, and was now just waiting, holding his daughter's hand. The progress bar read thirty eight percent when the heart rate monitor flatlined.

"NO!" Dr. Ellidy screamed, leaping up from his seat. As the specially designed hospital bed attempted to resuscitate its patient, the doctor ran to the computer screen, frantically trying to think of a way to increase the speed of the transfer. Coming up with nothing, he turned in defeat, and sat back down. The bed had successfully restarted his daughter's heart, but it he knew it was only temporary. He looked sorrowfully at his daughter, and took her hand.

"I'm sorry, Nikki. I'm so sorry." He tried to wipe enough eyes out of his eyes to see clearly."I tried!" he said to her. "God knows I tried." He abandoned his attempt to clear his vision. "I guess it just wasn't meant to be." her pulse was slowing again. "I love you." Nikki's heart stopped again. The bed tried to start it again. It failed. Dr. Ellidy sat there, his head in his hands, sobbing. She had been fourteen years old. Neuro-Immuno Deficiency Syndrome. He should have seen the signs sooner. When her gums had started bleeding, and the dentist told them it was just gingivitis, and that if she just brushed twice a day and flossed regularly… he stopped himself. This wasn't the dentist's fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. Sometimes, bad things just happen.

After what felt like years, Dr. Ellidy got up from his chair, and walked over to his computer. On the screen was an error message, informing him that the data transfer was incomplete. He shut the computer off with a small sigh.

"Corrupted data detected." Dr. Ellidy looked over at the handheld, where it had apparently just exited sleep mode. The tiniest glimmer of hope ignited in his soul.

"Recover data!" he yelled at the handheld, the glimmer growing to the smallest of flames.

"Confirmed. Attempting data recovery." The doctor knew that praying wouldn't help, but he did it anyway. "Please god, I know you don't take personal requests, but please, if you can, save at least some part of my daughter." It didn't work. The flame of hope was snuffed out almost as soon as it had been lit.

"Data recovery complete, sixteen percent recovered. Predicted extrapolation accuracy, zero percent."

"Heh, figures" he laughed grimly. Despite the shock he was going through, he was still thinking rationally. His next action should be to call the morgue.

"Valid intelligence matrix detected. Activating semantics processor." The doctor turned with a start. "What did you say?" the doctor asked, dumbfounded.

"Greetings, unknown entity." the handheld said in its artificial monotone. He was almost too scared to ask.

"Nikki?"

"Unknown term: ni-kee" Dr. Ellidy put his head down on the desk and started crying.

"Unknown entity, please explain distress." Dr. Ellidy did not look up.

"Unknown entity, please explain distress." Dr. Ellidy looked up.

"Unknown entity, please explain distress." Dr. Ellidy looked at the handheld, his most prized invention, with a look of utter helplessness. "My daughter is dead." he said simply. The aperture of the device's camera dilated.

"I'm sorry." It said. Dr. Ellidy hugged the handheld to his chest, and began sobbing again. "There, there." It said in its robotic monotone. Somehow, he found this comforting.


End file.
